[MUD-Dev] C&C and Event Rescheduling

[clawrenc at cup.hp.com]

In <Marcel-1.26-0816134239-0b0Ky&5 at Gryphon.knoware.nl>, on 08/16/97 
   at 09:16 AM, Marian Griffith <gryphon at iaehv.nl> said:

>Isn't it simple to have some kind of priority for actions. I remember 
>from my sociology classes that there is something like that defined.
>Survival is highest on that list,  below that comes finding food and
>shelter and so on. I can probably find the exact list if somebody is
>interested. Commands that work toward higher level goals  should
>override commands that you are executing that have a lower level. 
>Drawing your sword should over-ride digging a hole as it has to do 
>with survival,  but eating bread in the middle of a fight is plain 
>silly  and that command should beignored  until the fight is over.  

As your sociology class should have mentioned, especially if it
touched on anthropology at all (which I damned well hope it did), or
some of the ecology aspects of speciation, a lot of this has to do
with free resources.  Fashion proves a wonderful if obverse model here
due to the resource being the apparancy rather than the fact (cf skirt
lengths as vs general affluence levels).  The luxury trade provides a
simpler and more direct model:

  In hard times, there is attention paid to items not critical to
survival.

  In richer times, proportionately more attention is paid to
non-critical items.

This can be seen clearly in the physical forms of various species. 
Frills, flaps, fancy colouration, etc when not geared directly toward
survival (the dappling on a fawn's coat) are symbols that this
create/species is able to afford to waste resources on non-essentials. 


Reverting to our MUD world:

  BubbaNewbie is confronted by an angry ogre with a mace.  Sure as
heck, Bubba can't afford a spec of attention for *anything* but the
ogre.

  BoffoHardedVeteran is confronted by the same ogre, and finds that it
consumes almost none of his attention (the resource under contention
here).  He merely ensures that he knows what the ogre is doing,
dispatches it offhandled when the opportunity arises with least
effort, and meanwhile continues cooking his cordon bleu meal with just
the right hint of sage for the venison.

Reverse this a bit to make it interesting:

  Bubba is trying to climg a very slippery tree.  A swarm of bees
approaches and begins to sting Bubba:

  a) Bubba stops climbing and now does something about the bees.  They
hurt!

  b) Bubba knows that if he doesn't get off the ground soom that
approaching flood is going to drown him.  He ignores the bees and
continues working on climbing.

AdamW -- Can your system model this last case?

--
J C Lawrence                           Internet: claw at null.net
(Contractor)                           Internet: coder at ibm.net
---------------(*)               Internet: clawrenc at cup.hp.com
...Honorary Member Clan McFUD -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...